It was established on 2 January 1957 and was initially based around the purchased private collection of Rajguru Hem Raj Pandey, an advisor to King Mahendra of Nepal. Items of the Central Secretariat Library were also brought into the collection totaling 34,292 items at the time of the foundation.[1] The library is located at Pulchowk near UNDP complex. At present the library has around 84,000 volumes of books, journals and other materials in different languages.[citation needed]